


Of Faith

by TeaCub90



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Cuddling and Snuggling, Fluff, Gen, Leap Year, M/M, Sunsets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22990741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaCub90/pseuds/TeaCub90
Summary: On the first Leap Year after the Aborted Armageddon, Crowley takes Aziraphale to the beach.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	Of Faith

**Author's Note:**

> So...I'm not a well bunny right now, and am in a very obsessive-compulsive state of mind. Consequently, I published this, deleted it and am now publishing it again. My apologies for any confusion.

* * *

On the first Leap Year after the Aborted Armageddon, Crowley takes Aziraphale to the beach.

They rent out a little cottage high on the cliffs above, miraculously free (no, really; it’s a prime spot and what with the weather, there just happens to have been a cancellation. _Really,_ M’Lud, it’s a fair cop) between a tiny village (with a pub and a bookshelf) and with the whole of the sea and sky laid out before them. There’s hardly anybody around at this time of year and they find themselves able to stretch their wings out, in the garden out back where Aziraphale sunbathes and reads and Crowley shouts at the plants and threatens to make complaints to the owner about the sheer state of them, and their white and black feathers interlude and intertwine, the pair of them cricking their necks, letting themselves be and float and feature, somewhere in this world they managed to save. _(Helped_ to save – along with eight other people, four of whom were after all children, plus a medium, the grouchy witch-finder she married and the hopeless IT assistant who gave his heart – the opposite-of-tech-savvy – away to a smart and beautiful prophetess).

That evening, Aziraphale wanders up to the highest cliff – it’s tougher than you’d think, but he’s got a _lot_ to think about – and stands on the edge, letting his wings out, watching the sun set over the water. Considers the many people of the world who aren’t watching this right now; who are dashing home from work, or school, on their mobile telephones and – and those Apple-pill things (or are those tablets?) or watching television, always rushing, rushing, _rushing,_ none of them knowing how close they came to never having another sunset like this one. Sometimes, he wonders what precisely it was all for, in the end – if they won despite the issues, or in vain.

Aziraphale shivers at the thought and then a blanket – tartan, soft, suspiciously familiar – is placed around his shoulders and Crowley is there beside him, grinning, rakish, resting his chin on his shoulder. Aziraphale brings his wings in automatically, but a slight shift later and his wings are poking out through conveniently-placed holes in the blanket.

Of course, he thinks, ever so fond, drawing Crowley’s arms around him and kissing his cheek, courtly. Of course.

‘Thankyou, my darling,’ he praises; Crowley, for his part, shrugs his shoulders and mutters something along the lines of it _being all good, whatever;_ those strange grunting sounds he makes when flustered or complimented, which nevertheless manage to be quite charming.

They watch the sun go down together, a vibrancy of orange glimmering into a faint, cocktail pink, putting Aziraphale in mind of New York summers in the 80s and 90s; ice-cream licked clean on the grass in Central Park, two guys out enjoying America. It settles over – or behind – the sea, the promise of wake-up calls for people on the other side of the world, another load of school-runs and car-runs and complains and money, money, money. Aziraphale leans back against Crowley – not too far, Gabriel’s cruel jibe of ‘lose the gut’ never too far away and the last thing he wants to do is send his dear friend sprawling – and covers his hands with his own, twines them together, feels kisses on his shoulder.

He savours it all of a moment before the wind whips past them, shaking their feathers – Crowley’s wings dip down in all their fetching ebony – and he comes to his senses upon realising that Crowley – silly boy – only has his jacket on, and not much else to protect him from the chill.

‘Oh, my darling, come here.’ He lifts the blanket and beckons Crowley underneath – gets a chuffing smirk in response and a cheeky glint over the edge of the dark glasses, but as he pulls the blanket over them both, the glasses come off and it’s just him, the shelter of the blanket over Crowley’s head, and the beauty of Crowley’s remarkable amber eyes, revealed just for him.

They hide beneath the blanket for a moment, just looking at each other – _just observing,_ as that very handsome actor would say in that loose BBC knock-off of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, or _something_ like that, anyway. Aziraphale looks at Crowley looking at him; his tender russet hair, the darling shape of his nose, the gentleness that steals across his features when it’s just the two of them (or when there are small children around).

They’ve sheltered together before – in the bookshop, under the first rainstorm, in derelict buildings and trenches and cells as the world’s violence has taken its toll. But here, standing on what feels – not the edge of the world, precisely, but somewhere in the centre, with the promise of more across the water – Aziraphale feels the urgency ebb away from the past six thousand years. Not that he’s always rushed – at least, not when he’s been chased by revolutionaries and peasants and God help him, _Trump-supporters_ – but there had always been an assumption that everything he enjoyed would one day cease to be. The storm that’s been plaguing the country has settled, without any need for a miracle; here, they’re safe, or far away from it at least and there’s only a chill, open sky, a canvass of orange and lilac, the proverbial painting of a day that only exists every four years in a time that was once never thought to come.

For now, at least, the world is safe and he feels _something_ – something where he fancies his heart is – settle. Has settled for months, really, but this is the first time he really feels it. Stands here with all he is, with the knowledge of all he’s done; hopes it was enough.

Tonight – well within the peripheral of the all-seeing, all-knowing gaze of the Almighty, the colour reaching across the water, the stripes of a recent plane journey mingling with the clouds across the horizon like embracing arms – it _feels_ like enough.

‘Are you happy, angel?’ Crowley asks finally, a soft hush breaking their quiet, a finger slipping up to touch his cheek. Aziraphale smiles; takes the hand, kisses it, and then his cheek, courtly.

‘I’m _very_ happy, my darling,’ he murmurs and leans his head on his shoulder, shuts his eyes, smiling. Four years ago, on the last Leap Year, he had been trembling with terrified tears on the sofa in his shop, certain he was going mad with the knowledge of it, the prospect of just a few years feeling more like a few minutes, and worse still than the seeming luxurious time of a prosperous eleven. He’d wondered if they’d procrastinated, if they’d failed, hadn’t used their time wisely. If he and Crowley would be discovered and set upon and _separated._

Crowley, of course, had found him; comforted him; held him steady. Crowley had known, as ever, _exactly_ what to say.

They hold each other close atop the cliff-face, swap tender kisses, soak and settle in the peace – and there’s a moment when Aziraphale wonders if Crowley will test them both, scoop them both off the edge and send them to flight just because he _can,_ but instead, he simply plonks himself down by Aziraphale’s feet, tented by the angel’s wings and the blanket and curls a hand around his leg, leaning against him, eyes on the horizon, his golden gaze easy enough to find somewhere within its shades; rubs his cheek against Aziraphale’s legs, adorably catlike. Aziraphale smiles down at him; ruffles his hair just to see him shake and scowl, bites back a giggle at the put-upon glare he’s getting, the twitching smile, badly hidden, at the corner of the demon’s mouth. With that in mind, he goes slower; strokes those lovely locks, over and over, until Crowley is humming happily, nuzzling against his leg, utterly relaxed as Aziraphale’s fingertips tease his scalp.

‘Back to the cottage, angel?’ he asks, finally, demurely, as the sun sinks slowly beneath the sea on another leap year; leaving the evening colder, neglected. Out here, the chill could seep into your bones, so Aziraphale slips his hand into Crowley’s, instead. ‘We’ll have fish and chips.’

Aziraphale smiles, tugs him carefully to his feet. ‘That sounds delightful, darling.’

He squeezes his hand as they turn their backs on the night and lets himself be led all the way back to their little haven of blankets, and plants, and books waiting to be read, and treats in the fridge, Crowley’s red hair a beacon in the darkening night as the first stars wink against the evening sky.

*


End file.
